GreenLignt

I agree that as we improve, so will the interest. If the Mean Green Room is consistently too small then htere is a larger room that could be made available on the west side. Great promotions aren't going to help a lot if the team isn't competitive. JJ could become a showman a la Bill Blakeley but that's not him. He's just a great player or two away from having some great crowds. As to halftime, the last game was the best that I've ever seen. Honor a million dollar donor each game and then have the Little Dribblers follow that and I'd come just for the halftime.

Sorry, you are correct. The Mansfield Summit recruit is for women's basketball. Sturns fro North Crowley is who I had in mind.

That's a hard one to answer, Zeke. He wasn't dogging it; he played decent defense and wasn't passed to very much when he was near the basket (which was most of the time). He would have had two field goals had he not been fouled. I'm not sure that he played a lot of minutes. I haven't seen how many shots that he took but it couldn't have been many. My biggest disappointment about him was his rebounding. He was blocked out a lot. The game was pretty sloppy so it's hard to gauge what next year will be. They lose Rogers and will desparately need a point guard. Hopkins had a little trouble getting started but once he got it going he was great. He needs to come back next year at this same level. Barnett was o.k. but his bad back doesn't help his agility. DeGrate played well and we'll miss him. Mitchell hit several nice shots from the corner and Harris had a couple of nice plays but I don't see either as a starter next year. We desparately need some more big men. If we get Bam Jackson and the young man from Mansfield Summit, both will likely get a lot of playing time and they will, along with Hopkins and Mitchell give us a decent backcourt. Hopefully, Watson can do the job at 3 but I worry about power forward and to some extent, the center position. With the loss of Rogers, Smith, Johnson and DeGrate it's hard for me to believe that we'll be as good next year.

I don't know of any Division 1A universities that totally comply with the percentage of females vs. percentage of scholarships/facilities. Female sports are about 35% of our athletic budget and about 55% of our student body is female. But we do have to comply with the spirit of the law. Let's say CUSA would take us if we added baseball, just as the Southland did, then I don't think that would be a stumbling block, nor I do think that the women would object if we promised to add another women's sport within 'x' amount of time. Funding might be difficult but I'd bet that there are alums who would give to support the baseball program only. We might not cover all of the baseball budget initially but enough to ease the pain. It may take some kind of conference demand though or we'll postpone it until we can truly afford it. I looked at the ten 1-AA schools that would be the best possibilities for Division 1A and fournd that only Montana did NOT play baseball. Four were predominantly black universities where funding is sometimes a problem. There aren't very many 1A universities that do not play baseball. Baseball is not that expensive because many players are not on a full scholarship.